All 2012 Cross Country Junior Nationals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of J2 boys sprint brackets Overall results Kern Claims Championship Upon Return Just over a week ago, Julia Kern was racing in Estonia at the J1 Scando Cup and led the American women in the 5 k classic, placing 14th. If that wasn’t impressive enough, consider she’s a J2. The Cambridge Sports Union skier from Massachusetts returned to the states...
All 2012 Cross Country Junior Nationals coverage is brought to you through the generous support of OJ girls heats results Overall results (scroll for J1 girls) Lustgarten Leads New England In a 1.3 k sprint, there isn’t much time for decisions. So when Eric Lustgarten, a sophomore at St. Lawrence University, forged ahead on the second and final significant climb at Soldier Hollow, he knew there was no turning back. Previously hanging behind his New...
MIDWAY, Utah —Sun? Check. Snow? Check. Parking-lot dance party? Check. After a long winter of focusing on training, battling uncooperative weather and fighting to the top of divisional qualifying races, the wait is over for junior skiers from across the country: the 2012 edition of the U.S. Cross Country Junior National Championships kick off on Monday at 9:00 am MST at Soldier Hollow. Ten years after Norwegian superstar Thomas Alsgaard brought this stadium to its...
MIDWAY, Utah — FasterSkier was on-site the day before the 2012 Cross Country Junior Nationals nordic races start and snapped a few photos from the trails, which include a 1.3 k sprint loop (for Monday’s classic sprints) and a 5 k course (for freestyle mass starts and individual classic races on Wednesday and Friday, respectively).
Emil Jönsson needed this. He had been sick for too long, without a top 10 result since December and mostly out of contention for a World Cup podium since the end of last season. Two weekends ago at the freestyle sprint in Szlarska Poreba, Poland, the Swede was 62nd. That was behind him. This was Lahti, Finland, where he won the classic sprint last year. With some of the trickiest descents on the World Cup,...
Whatever condition they were in a week ago, most of the members of the U.S. Ski Team would rather forget it. The ride to Davos, Switzerland, had been rough enough with Kikkan Randall and Andy Newell suffering the worst of a stomach bug that affected the team for most of February. Newell wrote in a Feb. 23 blog post that he and Randall vomited right before leaving Poland for a nine-hour road trip. With two...
Norway’s Therese Johaug notched her fourth individual World Cup win of the season on Saturday in Lahti, Finland, skiing to a comfortable 10.8-second win in the 15 k skiathlon. She won a the 10 k pursuit race there last year. Johaug led a top-four Norwegian sweep; Marit Bjørgen led the chase pack to finish second, Heidi Weng notched her first career individual World Cup podium in third and Kristin Stoermer Steira was, once again, fourth. Just...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. Dr. Ian Duncan’s first phone call to Vegard Ulvang two years ago met a little dead air. It wasn’t that Ulvang, the executive director of the International Ski Federation’s cross-country committee, didn’t want to talk. He couldn’t at the time. The former Norwegian cross-country skiing superstar had the Olympics to tend to. Last summer, Duncan, a world-renowned National Multiple Sclerosis Society researcher...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. To this day, Luke Bodensteiner, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) vice president of athletics, said people don’t believe him when he talks about what happened at the 1988 American Birkebeiner. Seventeen at the time and coming off a Kortelopet victory in ’87, Bodensteiner had registered for the 29 k in an attempt to defend his title. Everything seemed to be going...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. The reflective crossing-guard vest and orange hat peeking out beneath his helmet made him unmistakable. Steve Clark was that guy pedaling between Cable and Hayward, Wis., last week, looking like a vagabond out there weathering the elements on his bicycle. Those that stopped to take his picture could have heard his story. A closer glance revealed he was toting a pair of...
Note: This story has been updated to include thoughts from David Chamberlain, who was later proclaimed the 2012 American Birkebeiner classic champion. *** All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. Before and during the American Birkebeiner 54 k classic race on Saturday, the thought of being disqualified never crossed Joe Dubay’s mind. The 21-year-old said he didn’t think twice when his College of Saint Scholastica teammate Chris Parr gave...
The Craftsbury Green Racing Project (GRP) is now accepting applications for the 2012-13 training year. Space will be limited, but we hope to be able to add a few new members to the team. Applications are be due by March 22nd and decisions will be made by April 1 at the latest. The Craftsbury Green Racing Project is enjoying another successful year, with a member on the USST B team, another member on the USBA...
“It was absolutely nuts. A couple times coming through the field, one guy would turn to another and go, “Where are we?” and then we’d laugh and keep skiing, not sure we were still on the trail. Everybody knew it was going to be a slog, so the pacing was reasonable for a 1:20 race… in other words, comically slow for a 20K. I got really bored at about 7 or 8 K because we...
This week’s roundup truly is a weeklong affair: FIS World Junior and Under-23 Championships began on Monday in Erzurum, Turkey, as did IBU World Youth and Junior Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. The action continued every day this week, and after literally dozens of races, North Americans came home with one gold and two silver medals. In Erzurum, the big story was the complete dominance of the Russian team. No matter which way you cut it,...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. HAYWARD, Wis. – Rounding one of last corners in the American Birkebeiner 50-kilometer skate race, Holly Brooks felt a pang of familiarity. Stronger than déjà vu, the 29-year-old from Anchorage, Alaska, knew she had been in a similar position in the same race before. From Brooks’ standpoint, finishing second in the 2009 Birkie by one-tenth of a second to Rebecca Dussault of...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. HAYWARD, Wis. – For the first half of Saturday’s 50-kilometer skate race at the 39th American Birkebeiner, Tad Elliott mostly looked down. The 23-year-old U.S. Ski Team member was hanging in there, but it wasn’t easy. Reaching for a water bottle around 24 k, he mustered the strength to ask his Salomon support staff where the frontrunners were. Last year’s runner-up, Benoit...
ERZURUM, Turkey — Before Saturday’s 15 k skiathlon began, gold had eluded Norway at the Junior/U23 World Championships. The team repeatedly stressed that the week that the learning experience was more valuable than the hardware, but athletes and team staff alike nonetheless seemed hungry for the wins they are used to. Martine Ek Hagen (NOR) finally delivered in the skiathlon, skiing a strong skate leg in the second half to win by 13.9 seconds over...
ERZURUM, Turkey —No matter what the level or competition, mass starts have a tendency to separate the men from the boys. Saturday’s 30 k skiathlon at U23 World Championships was no different—and with the top 11 U23s on the FIS ranking list present at Kandlilli for the skiathlon, the competition was certainly stacked. After over an hour of alternately hammering and dogging the pace, the lead pack got serious in the final kilometers. Russia’s Raul...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. CABLE, Wis. – Matt Liebsch’s wife had been in a car accident. Lars Flora couldn’t feel his fingers nearly two weeks after a ski mountaineering race in Vail, Colo. Holly Brooks had just returned home to Alaska to recharge. Caitlin Gregg was waiting for an OK from her doctor. Tad Elliott wasn’t sure what to do with a weekend off from the...
ERZURUM, Turkey — With his third gold medal of the week in Friday’s 20 k skiathlon, Sergey Ustiugov (RUS) has taken on the aura of a new Russian ski star being born. A Norwegian duo took the early lead and briefly appeared to finally have the energy to disrupt Russia’s dominance of this week, but Ustiugov soon took over and, together with compatriot Artem Maltsev (RUS), Russia once again took the top two spots on...